Peninsula of the Cape of Good Hope. 117 



spherical shape, four or five feet high, and as much in diameter. 

 In some districts, these nests cover the surface of the ground in 

 immense numbers, standing within a few yards of each other, 

 and resembling so many boulders of granite." 



We shall here introduce Capt. Carmichaers observations, 

 made on his return to Africa from the Mauritius. 



" Some time after the regiment returned from the Mauritius 

 to the Cape, in 1815, I made a short excursion into the coun- 

 try, in company with a party of sportsmen, who wished to re- 

 treat for a few weeks from the dust and the South-Easters of 

 Capetown. We left town on the morning of the 3d of January, 

 and directed our course across the Isthmus which connects the 

 Cape Peninsula with the mainland. Though it was about the 

 middle of the dry season, we had the benefit of several heavy 

 showers from the westward during our ride, with which we felt 

 the less annoyed, though drenched to the skin, as they fixed the 

 moving sand, and tempered the scorching heat of the atmosphere. 

 In the rainy season, the whole of this plain is a series of marshes, 

 intersected by ridges of sand. At the time we crossed it, these 

 swamps were mostly dried up ; but wherever the surface was in 

 the least depressed, there were still manifest indications of the 

 existence of water. There can be no doubt that abundance of 

 this element might be procured in every part of the Isthmus by 

 digging to the depth of a few feet : at all events, by digging to 

 the level of the sea, which is not much more, we are taught by 

 experience, as well as by the laws of Hydrostatics, that not here 

 alone, but in every region of the globe, a supply of water can 

 be depended on. With such a resource, skilfully applied, this 

 barren waste might be converted into fertile gardens ; from which 

 the capital could be supplied with an abundant supply of vege- 

 tables, and an end put to the present monopoly of these articles, 

 by a few farmers in the immediate vicinity of the town. 



" A great part of the plain is covered with a fine quartz sand, 

 furnished b) the disintegration of the sandstone mountains which 

 surround it. It shifts perpetually from place to place at the 

 humour of the breeze, forming a succession of banks, or ridges, 

 white as driven snow. This periodical motion has a singular 

 effect on the shrubby plants which are scattered over its surface. 

 When suddenly overwhelmed by the sand, they push up their 



